Blood
by zomgkateh
Summary: Everything that could go wrong, would.
1. Chapter 1

Something didn't smell right in the air today.

She couldn't pinpoint it, but this wave of uneasiness washed over her as she passed through the forest on all fours, shifted as she had been for the past day or so. The wildlife refuge seemed to be the perfect place for her to hide in while things in the city died down, and now Kyle was trailing behind. She had no doubt that he could keep up with her, and at times she welcomed the challenge. But as of right now she preferred to conserve her energy. They were going to need to hunt later, and now with a second body they could take down bigger game all the more easily and with a greater chance for success. She was now daydreaming of real elk as she trotted, the closest thing she'd ever had to it being deer. And after awhile, venison just didn't cut it anymore. So now, sweet elk was just within her reach. Now, to find the damn things…


	2. Chapter 2

Today of all days the omega squad decided it was best to go and track down one of their soldiers that'd gone rogue. Just a day or two prior, home base got the signal that one of their collars, that belonging to the mutant Wildheart, had been decommissioned by means of electrical overload. It was unclear if it was mere mechanical malfunction or if the mutant had gone rogue, but that was why they were out here today. A small distress signal still relayed as it sat in Kyle's vest pocket, which gave the coordinates of his whereabouts in real time. So, on their computers, he was on the move. It wasn't looking good for him.

Capt. Tseng grumbled as he looked through his binoculars, surveying the vast hills for any signs of movement from their runaway soldier. He had to be close, trackers were saying so themselves. "Come out, come out wherever you are," he whispered to himself as he scanned every inch of the grassland. The rest of his small squad, a set of four other soldiers, remained at the watch with guns drawn in case of an attack. Although not expecting to be confronted by anyone else than their lost property, one couldn't be too careful. The military was still on some peoples' shit lists. And then—ah, there! He spotted a rustling of some grass, and then as he focused in he saw Kyle in plain sight. "Gotcha," Tseng said with a grin as he followed Kyle's trail along to figure out which direction he was headed.

The face that the Captain made after was quite astonishing. He looked quite surprised, as walking right next to Wildheart was a god damn _lion_. Now that was not possible, lions weren't even closely native to New York State. He might have mistaken it for someone's escaped exotic pet, but he knew how big real lions were; this lioness was much too small. "He's got another mutant with him, a shapeshifter," Tseng said to his team members as he put his binoculars away. "They're headed due west, probably towards the river."

One of Tseng's men, Lieutenant Marks grumbled at the mentioning of a second mutant. He'd dealt with Wildheart before when he was alone, and it was already hard enough just to control him. To add a second into the fold was just asking for trouble. "What do you want done with the other, sir?" he asked, walking forward to stand next to Tseng.

"Only engage with it if it's hostile. The mission here is to replace Wildheart's collar, nothing more. Should the second mutant become hostile, subdue and collar it as well. "

Good thing they carried multiple collars on their persons at all times.

So the small group packed up, loaded their weapons and trudged through the brush with a sense of urgency. They needed to get this shit over with as quickly as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

Kali's ears perked up and her head turned to look far behind them, curious at a sound she hadn't heard earlier. She even stopped, the tip of her tail flicking this way and that as she breathed deeply and tried to find a scent that might have been new to her. Kyle stopped as well, crossbow cradled in his arms as he looked down at her and then following her gaze he too looked far beyond them. "What?" he asked, sniffing the air curiously to see what she might have noticed. His brow furrowed then and a growl rumbled from his throat, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. "Shit!" He exclaimed. He knew the scents of his 'employers' any day of the week, and right now they were so close they were bound to catch up to the two of them quite easily. He knew what they were here for, and hell he _was_ planning to voluntarily go back and get his collar replaced…why they chose to send out a fuckin' search party was simply baffling.

"You need to go, now!" he yelled at Kali, who had the face of utter confusion as her body coiled into itself and readied itself to start running like Hell. Why was he yelling at her to go?! She didn't want to abandon him, and if this was his way of saying he was in trouble then she sure as shit wasn't going to follow directions. Kyle snarled at her then, pissed that she wasn't running. "You heard me, go!" he yelled again, his booming and alarmed voice attempting again to sway her. He was about ready to physically _chase_ her away, in mid-stride when he felt a dart hit him right in the shoulder blade. An angry howl escaped him, and within seconds before he could change into the beast the entire team minus Tseng were pinning him down to the ground.

"Taking a little vacation are we, Wildheart?" Tseng asked with a grin, motioning for his men to pull him up as the captain reached into his pocket and pulled out the collar. It was still in its rounded, intact state. How the Hell did he do that? Tseng's face was puzzled as he studied the damage-free collar. "You fucking shit, I don't know how you got this off but this new one's gonna be a lot more durable," he then hissed at Kyle as Lt. Marks pulled out the new collar and (not without a good fuss from Kyle) got it fitted around his neck. Kyle snarled at the man-handling, trying to throw the soldiers off of him but seemed to be failing. That dart injected him with some kind of fucking numbing neurotoxin that was dulling his powers.

All while this was happening, Kali stood frozen in alarm. But as she watched the soldiers take down Wildheart she lowered her body down closer to the ground while she took on a more defensive stance. Her teeth were bared, muzzle pulled back into a snarl while her ears pinned back against her skull. She even swiped a paw at one of them when they got too close to her.

"Sir, the other mutant's getting hostile! Permission to subdue!" Shouted Marks as he dodged her paw.

"Get that fucking animal under control, Marks! Now!" Tseng shouted at him as left Kyle and ran over in Marks' direction. And within moments, she'd gotten shot with two darts and one of the men thought that roping her around the neck would be a great idea. They were so fucking dead wrong it wasn't even funny.

Kali charged the lieutenant, her muscles burning from the neurotoxin but still angry enough to charge. However, when the rope made its way around her neck she completely went ballistic. Claws were out and she started to flail wildly, throwing her paws everywhere in hopes to catch a body. And well well, those claws sank into the lieutenant's back and he screamed in agony. He let go of his hold on the rope and she pushed it off of her head before she pounced on Marks and proceeded to murder him out of self-defense. Her jaws ripped into his throat, spilling his blood in an instant and getting herself covered in red.

One of the other soldiers, Hunnam, screamed as she witnessed Marks' murder and without asking for an order from her captain she acted on pure instinct. The woman raised her gun, cocked it and then it happened. Her gun let off a couple of rounds at which her team members flinched and cowered at the sound of the shots. This gave Wildheart a chance to get up and escape, though not without helplessly being the witness to what happened next.


	4. Chapter 4

Bang! Bang, bang! The ear piercing sound of the gunshots sliced through the air as the bullet sailed on and hit her straight in the right femur. She yowled in excruciating pain, sending her down onto the ground with a large thud. Her world was spinning for a moment, not yet understanding what had even happened yet. The second shot went a little more cranial, slicing through her abdomen and exiting out the other side. The third hit her right carpus, shattering the already tiny bones. Despite these shots, she panicked and scrambled up to stand as best she could. She needed to get out of here, and now. So she yowled as she started to pull herself into a meandering lope, her hind limb tucked up against her body while her forelimb stepped gingerly as she hobbled along at a much slower pace. This was bad. She could feel the blood gurgling from her wounds, and the pain of the shattered bone was sending her reeling with every hop of her supporting hind limb. She cried as she kept going, considerably slowed down but for some reason, the MILITARY weren't chasing her down.

"You fucking shot it, Hunnam!" Tseng shouted at his subordinate. "That wasn't the objective!" He then stomped over to where she stood and grabbed the gun from her hands. "You'll have to earn this back." He then turned around to see their main target, Wildheart, gone from sight. He must have left in the midst of the chaos. That was fine though. They got what done what they needed to do.


	5. Chapter 5

She was leaving a trail of blood behind her, making it all too easy to find her if they went looking. Growing tired, she started looking for somewhere to hide until her healing factor kicked in and got her on the mend. However, these hills didn't have too much in the way of shelter for her. Eventually though, she came across a dug out, dirt-lined ditch that seemed to be her size, so she limped over to it and once she stepped in, she collapsed on the floor. Groaning in pain, she tried to move herself into a more comfortable position and all the while, she was begging her healing factor to kick in faster. But it was taking its good old time. Even so, the previously shattered femur began to regenerate the bone, the profuse bleeding eventually dying down. There was still a gaping hole in her leg though, as there was both an entry and exit wound going straight through right above her hock. Eyes closed as her painful groans continued, her head outstretched and panting lightly as she tried to bear the pain. Her carpus seemed to be the least damaged, the swollen limb healing pretty easily and at least that pain was going away.

But her abdomen wasn't in the best shape; the bullet had torn through her jejunum and ileum and pierced the edge of her spleen before it exited out the other side. Blood poured from both the exit and entry wound, and it certainly didn't help that the bullet nicked an organ that liked to hold a lot of blood. As she lay in her ditch, the blood pooled around her and had she moved, her entire left side would have been stained in red. Even as the slow healing process had begun, it certainly wasn't going to be an immediate stop to the bleeding, and it scared her quite frankly. She wasn't completely aware of the location of all her organs, so not knowing exactly _what_ was injured put her into a panic. That, intertwined with the excruciating pain of her injuries was enough to make her hyperventilate.

She hadn't even noticed as Kyle approached her. She hadn't smelled him above the metallic scent of her own blood. It was all of a sudden that she heard him sit at the front of her and her ears perked slightly, though she was still grimacing in pain and her chest was heaving with an increased effort. She felt him running his fingers through the fur on her head, cradling her skull in his lap. "I'm sorry, pussycat," he said to her softly. "This is my fault." She managed to open her eyes and look up at him, though the pain in her eyes was oh too apparent. "Shift back, and I'll take you to shelter," he urged, knowing that this was not the most ideal spot to try and hide in. There was not enough cover for the both of them. However, all she did was shake her head at him. She couldn't shift; it wasn't possible unless she really wanted to die. She could just picture her wounds ripping into even bigger ones, and considering her blood loss already she probably would have died from hypovolemic shock had she tried to shift. "What do you mean, 'no'? You mean you're stuck like this?" She nodded her head at him. "Alright then. We're still getting to shelter though," and with that he used all of his strength to cautiously lift her while causing the least harm as possible. He scowled as he saw the pool of red once he grabbed her, feeling the blood on his arms as he scooped her up. This wasn't good. At all.


	6. Chapter 6

He carried her far away from that ditch, as far enough as to where there were trees and places to truly hide. There was a dense bit of brush nearby which would suit their purpose well, to hide them just long enough for her to heal. If the damn process would ever start, that is. She figured that by the rumbling of her stomach, she needed to eat. Maybe that would expedite the process. Yet...she wasn't going to be hunting in her condition. She whined as he set her down, and it was as if he'd heard her growling tummy for not long after he put her down he said, "I'll be back with food." And would you look at that, a little while later he came back with a dead doe, pretty young by the size of her. They both devoured the kill at the same time, no politics with pack order or anything. Eating as equals even though she was injured. Taking her fill (which was more than the norm considering she needed enough energy to heal), Kyle dragged the remains of the doe away for the scavengers to pick at, and returned to where he'd sat before and picked up the head petting once more.

"Does it hurt?" He asked quietly, looking at the slowly healing leg and then to her still bleeding abdomen. The bleeding seemed to have stopped now, the bone fragments coming back together and sealing into solid bone once again. The muscle began to slowly repair now, the strands starting to pull themselves back together though this would prove to be a slow process no matter what. Muscle didn't get good blood supply, so healing was always delayed no matter what. She nodded at him, wincing slightly as she attempted to reposition the injured limb. A part of her was curious that he wasn't being affected by the scent of her blood. The other part of her was grateful. Little did she know that it was he collar's doing, as in the skirmish the military had got one back on him and this time, it was heavy duty. For all she knew, he was getting constant shocks to keep him from losing his cool and getting taken over by the beast. That, or he was somehow unaffected by the sight and smell of her blood.


End file.
